Orhan Pamuk, the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2006, is one of the most interesting and versatile of contemporary writers whose prose contributes to the understanding of the cultural background of the Orient and the Occident forged out of the juxtaposition of Islam and Christianity. As a might-have-been artist, who is currently an amateur photographer, the author, in an uncommon way, visualizes the continual wonder towards colors in the surrounding reality featuring in his fictional and non-fictional texts. The most important aspects of Pamuk’s works, however, are the journeys near and far and those within oneself, as well as the wanderings through cities, especially those of his native Istanbul. Aside from the returns home and to the motherland, Pamuk contrasts the inspiring voyages out with the voyages into the collective and individual past, in all their historical and political complexity. The present paper is an overview of Orhan Pamuk’s works from the perspective of colors and the aforesaid passages, which remind his readers of travelling as a basic topos of the course of human existence.

The article aims to analyse Kāyam Khā̃ Rāso and to contextualize it against the interplay of cultural influences in early modern India. While earlier research showcased that Jān chose to accentuate just the local qualities of their Rajput lineage, this paper argues that Sufism sacred kingship presents an equally important role in its interpretation. ‘The local’ of Kāyam Khā̃ Rāso should be understood as both Islamic and Rajput rather than Rajput at the expense of Islamic features. This article examines different facets of the image of the Kāyam Khānī rulers in the text and showcases how they are presented in Rāso. It then uses the analysed image in to argue that their ‘locality’ belongs simultaneously to both worlds. Their milieu should be regarded as local, Rajput and Islamic, but equally distant from both the so-called Great Tradition of Hinduism, and orthodox Islam. It forms conversation space where contact between traditions can be achieved.